bend my back beneath the sun
by Ivory Muse
Summary: A collection of drabbles, mostly Fire Nation-centric. / lure the fly— Ozai has never been prouder of his daughter.
1. your face still distorts the time

you think about mai. not by your own volition, because your old life is slowly drowning in fog a thousand miles off shore and because she deserves _so_ much better than the likes of you, but you can't help it. you think about her the same way you breathe harsh gasps of salt air, naturally.

(you dream of her a few months before your sixteenth birthday. she's perched on top of a tree, the afternoon sunlight drenching her pale form, and she laughs, dangles an apple just out of your grasp as you reach up from the base. her features are blurred, a rough sketch; you awaken sweating and so hard it's painful.)

uncle asks you, teasingly, why you've no desire for the brothels like all the other sailors. offers to introduce you to the most skilled whores in the backwater colonies of aizubange, miharu, ōsato, if only it'll brighten your grim countenance a moment. you scowl and press a hand against the scarred part of your face in reply. do not ever tell him the truth.

at night you wonder if she is any happier than she was when you left.


	2. and it goes on bleeding

notes: _so, yeah... this was my personal headcanon before the search came out. (i am not an optimist. i am also obsessed with death/grief.)_

* * *

The grave is silent, damning.

It doesn't even bear her true name— Baozhai, it says, what he wishes was some other Earth Kingdom woman dead in obscurity. If Ozai hadn't directed him to her final resting place, he would have never guessed that a (former) princess lay there.

" _Dysentery_ ," Azula says quietly to no one in particular, tilting her head skyward. It's raining. "Filthy peasants. You burn diseased bodies, you don't stick them in the dirt and let them contaminate the groundwater."

"That's what bothers you?" Zuko asks, but there is no real incredulity in his voice. It bothers him, too, that a woman as remarkable as their mother was left to rot here, a festering corpse under a pseudonym. "We can't exactly dig it up now."

There are tears on his face. He is ashamed of them— Fire Lords do not cry, and he would rather break down wailing in front of his _father_ than before Azula. But she does not mock him like she did when they were children, a lifetime ago, and he slowly realizes that's because her shoulders are shaking.

The outburst startles him— Azula never cries, and she was not close to Ursa. The rain always gives his old lightning wound a pulse of its own, but he puts a hesitant arm around her. She stiffens, then allows herself to lean into him.

"Let's go," she commands at last in a shuddery, weak voice, scrubbing at her wet eyes. Putting herself back together. "There's nothing left for us here."

"She loved you."

"I know," she says, and he can tell that for once she means it. "Come on, Zuzu. It's pouring."


	3. laid it all to waste

mai has grown older, in your absence. that's fine, because you've grown older, too.

she's always been danger hidden behind hair-ribbons and shy smiles, you think. one day she curls up against your chest in the courtyard where you knocked her into a fountain, and she tells you, very casually, just how she tracked the avatar with azula and ty lee. how she let her own brother be held for ransom, how she clasped a pillow over her head when the kyoshi warriors begged and wailed and gnashed their teeth, how she first put a shuriken to a man's jugular (a most unglamorous colonial skirmish) and realized that yes yes she could dig the point in and let the blood pour over her hands slick and hot feel alive as he twitches his last.

you aren't sure if she's looking for absolution or praise— which is fine, because you've got the same dilemma going on. she speaks in this dead monotone, without inflection, without judgment. (and you so want to make her feel _something_. _anything_.)

you kiss her. because you understand, and because you are both still so young.

she smiles. looks like the hair-ribbon girl again.


	4. buy the flower shop

Sitting across the table, she does not speak without prompt or eat much or look up, as befits a noble girl in the presence of her betrothed. Small and dark and wrapped in yards of satin, kohl lining her colorless eyes, she sips chamomile tea silently as a ghost.

This is Ayakura Mai. She's the only daughter of the Caldera's wealthiest merchant, and when you're seventeen you're going to _marry_ her— such a strange, nebulous concept to you. Your parents are married; mostly, they seem to order around and yank by the hair (Father) or cry and avoid at all costs (Mother). You try to imagine her shredding your best robes or flinching when you raise a hand... and draw a mental blank.

"So, what do you enjoy doing, Mai?" Mother asks politely.

"Whatever it would please his highness for me to enjoy," she replies, voice hesitant and raspy. Her mother, Lady Kaida— a thin-lipped, sharp-faced woman— nods her approval.

"If only my daughter could be half as demure," Mother says with a laugh, though you can tell that wasn't really the answer she wanted. You're very, very bored, drowsy in the bright sunlight, wishing you could be anywhere else. You don't care about this boring girl's hobbies— or lack thereof.

Mai splashes tea onto her expensive _furisode._ Lady Kaida twists her arm where she thinks you can't see, the same way your father twists yours when you mess up a kata, and she cringes a little. You feel a newfound, sharp stab of pity— she's just an actress reciting her lines— and the ginger biscuit in your mouth suddenly tastes worse than sawdust.

"Do you like swords?" you whisper when your mothers have become distracted by dowry negotiations. "You have to like _something."_

"My uncle sent me throwing knives for my last birthday, and I'm pretty good with them," she whispers back, looking a lot less snooty now. "I guess swords are cool, too."

You smile. Shyly, from behind her bangs, she returns the gesture.


	5. learn the taste of dirt and pain

_notes: in which the second royal sibling has a tea party with mai. this one doesn't turn out too great. _

* * *

Her mother's grip is as tight as a vise around her wrist— almost as tight as the lace circling her neck and hips, the too-small shoes she has to wear because they're her best. She was supposed to behave like a proper little princess today, converse with her brother's nauseatingly obedient betrothed and make a good impression. Spilling hot tea in Mai's lap to see if she'd abandon her court training and cry out (to see if court training is _reversible_ ) was not part of that plan.

"I've never been so mortified in my life," Mother hisses, dragging Azula off to a semi-private corner behind the hibiscus bushes. "What possessed you to do such a thing? You could have burned Mai, and now you've ruined her robe. Do you _want_ to totally disgrace our house?"

"Sorry I'm not your precious Mai," Azula sneers to cover up her secret shame. Too often, she derives a perverse glee from rattling her mother's artificial, fragile composure, but today she feels as though the upper hand is slipping from her reach. "I bet that's why you want Zuzu to marry her. Then you'll have a daughter who does stupid embroidery and calligraphy and flower arranging, and just sits there and takes it when someone dumps tea all over her—"

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Mother demands hoarsely. "Why can't you ever be a good girl? Why do you have to be so much like your Agni-damned father?" She gives her a shake, and not a particularly gentle one.

"Let me go," Azula snarls, cheeks flushed with humiliation. "Or I'll tell Daddy. I'll tell him you're manhandling a princess of the blood." Appealing to her father can sometimes be a risky gambit— his temper is wild and unpredictable, and he, too, might judge her behavior inappropriate— but his loathing for her mother is usually enough to overshadow any disapproval of Azula. She's his special girl, after all, and Mother is just a trumped-up peasant who owes him for everything she has.

"I am your _mother_ , young lady. You have no right to order me around," she says, and strikes the back of Azula's thighs ferociously. The crack rings out across the garden like a thunderclap; firebending training has dealt her far worse pain, but little compares to this humbling sting. "If you've damaged Zuko's betrothal contract— you are going to apologize to the Ayakuras right now—"

But she doesn't say anything else, because suddenly Azula's hands glow red-hot and there's a shriek and she can see the fingermarks on her arm because Mother has leapt backwards, clutching a crop of blisters on her skin. "You can't make me," Azula says shakily. Refuge in audacity. "Stay away from me. I'll do it again if you don't leave me alone."

Mother is silent for such a long moment; just stares at her, with tear-filled eyes. Liar eyes, her father calls them, weak and manipulative and feminine and all which Azula is not meant for. "I can't even look at you anymore," she admits in a whisper-quiet voice. "You're— you're a monster, Azula. All you ever do is hurt."

Her mother walks away, then. Azula bites her lip _hard_ , until the taste of sun-bright blood in her mouth drowns out that of pu-erh bitter in the back.

(Later, she does tell her father. He calls her too great and terrible for her mother's reckoning, says she should go practice her katas instead of thinking about that worthless whore, but it does not heal the hollow place in her chest.)


	6. skipping heartbeats

notes: _rated r for ridiculous. also, this story makes a lot more sense if you assume that azula's doctors have just been slipping crack into her daily calming tea for the lulz._

* * *

Avatar Aang is sulking. Maybe. No, start that over. He is being a _mature adult_ about the fact that his female life partner might have had a few affairs before they got together, and that one of her old lovers might have expressed some (joking?) interest in picking things back up—

oh, who is he kidding.

"Girls like you," he pouts, flopping onto their bed as dramatically as possible, "way too much."

Ty Lee laughs and scoots closer to him, so that they're flopped side by side. "Only Zula," she says. "And Zula doesn't mean it how you think she does. She just can't show her feelings very well, so she expresses herself through sex. Typical red aura."

"She shoved her hand down your pants and asked if you wanted to form a new empire with her, okay? Is that normal for red auras?"

"Well, she's always been a little unique— you're _jealous_ ," she suddenly singsongs. "Tons of girls like _you_ 'cause you're the avatar. I cope."

"Yeah," he says, chastened, "I guess you're right. Still. The acolytes get the concept of healthy personal space."

"What if I told you," she says, arching off the bed in an effortless backbend— he can see a tanned inch of stomach from where her shirt rides up, is too conscious of her breasts straining against the cloth— "the only hand I want down my pants is yours?"

"Don't think you're charming," he chides, but his mood is considerably brightened by the time those pants hit the floor.


	7. id, ego, superego

notes: _i guess we're back to our usual angst and family dysfunction— with a nice helping of depressing au._

* * *

You aren't sleeping when your father pushes the door open, bathing your bed in dim light. You haven't slept well since you learned about assassins who lurk in the shadows, waiting for princes to let down their guards. Since you learned about the crew of assassins that is your so-called family.

He sits down next to you, and you sit up as well, shoving aside your covers. Heart in your throat. You don't think your father has ever entered your room— has ever wanted to be so close to you.

"Do you know what I did tonight, Zuko?" he whispers feverishly. Even through the dark, you can see the feral gleam in his eyes, the bloodlust— his grip on your wrist is burning hot. You do not flinch or look away. That was never an option.

"No," you say, swallowing hard.

"I got rid of my own father— for you," he adds, perhaps as an afterthought. "All I do is for you. Your future." He jerks your head back by your topknot so suddenly that you tear up, made to look straight into his face (as blinding, to you, as the sun). "Everything you touch seems to die, doesn't it?"

It now occurs to you that he might move his huge fist down to your neck and squeeze. There is absolutely nobody in the palace who could stop him.

"But what choice did I have?" he continues, slackening his grip and letting your head loll forward. "He ordered me to slay you, my only son, so that Iroh and I would be equals— and then I slayed him like the miserable wolf-dog he is. It's the mandate of heaven; the most fit must rule."

"And we are the most fit," you parrot, so very hoarsely. "The strongest and the fiercest. The ones who will yoke the earth."

His smile is devoid of mirth. "If your mother had lived— she was such a weak, stupid _bitch_ , Zuko, you can't imagine. Thank Agni you killed her, or else I would have done it myself. Forever prattling on about hope and peace and mercy, and she would have ruined you with it."

You really can't imagine. You've never spoken to a woman except the female servants, only to bark orders in their direction. From what your father tells you, you're better off— and your father is always right. He's all you have. He _has_ to be right.

Sometimes, you can almost believe that he loves you, like when he shoves you back down and pulls the covers over your stiff frame. For a moment, his hand rests on your shoulderblade; lightly, gently.

"Never forget who you are, my son," he says with a low laugh. " _Born lucky._ It could have been so much worse."

You miss your bright, foolish, idealistic cousin, Lu Ten, who taught you how to read and swim and use dao swords— you were two of a kind, motherless boys without an anchor. Maybe in a different life, you would have wept for him.

In this one, the expectation of your once-uncle's crown weighs heavy on your head, and you shut your eyes and you don't cry. Because men don't, and you think you've been a man ever since you were born, and because there is (should be) no difference between your father's happiness and yours.


	8. my fingers laced to crown

Katara has had limited experience with men, but she can already say that Jet is the most fascinating one she's ever met in her life.

He runs his own guerilla resistance group, commanding all of these ragtag orphans into a fighting force. He's lost his entire family to the Fire Nation pig-dogs— understands what it's like to sacrifice and grieve, work for a better future. He's so confident and smart and—

handsome? Definitely.

The treehouse they've slipped up to is dark, and she shivers as he traces her collarbone with a callused fingertip— his pupils are blown larger than usual. Her breath hitches, and she leans closer towards him, unthinkingly.

"You're really pretty, you know," he drawls, his tongue darting out from between his lips. "The prettiest girl I've seen in a long time."

She blushes, in spite of herself. No boy has called her pretty before— Katara, with her big jug-ears and frizzy hair and still-small breasts. Awkwardly, she folds her arms over her chest, but Jet shoves them aside. "Hey, don't be embarassed. How old are you?"

"I'll be fifteen in a couple of months."

"That's almost a woman," he says, and then his mouth is on hers, hot and needy and gasping. Her first— her _first_ kiss. It's wetter and softer, more exhilarating than she'd expected, and there's a strange prickling sensation starting to build between her legs. One she's afraid to name.

 _We need to stop_ almost spills from her throat, because she remembers Gran-Gran's all-too-firm talks about how good Water Tribe girls stay chaste until marriage... but she's left her tribe far behind, abandoned it in so many ways. "Do you trust me?" Jet murmurs, trailing kisses down her neck. "You're amazing, I mean it. We could be more than friends."

"I don't know what to do," she admits, cheeks so flushed they seem to pound with their own heartbeat. She feels dizzy, as though the temperature in the treehouse has suddenly spiralled upwards.

"It's natural. Most natural thing in the world," he says, his laugh low, and then he gently pushes her onto the bed, supine. "Just relax, and I'll take care of you."

She wants this— wants him, wants to be a woman and not a little girl so much that lust drives out her rationality. Her hands trembling, she fumbles with the sash on her dress, and arches her hips when Jet bats them aside and takes over the task.


	9. seasons of love

notes: iroh really can't catch a break dealing with bratty teenagers.

* * *

"I don't suppose you want to come out now? Or talk about it? Or have your supper?"

"I told you the last three times you knocked, Dad, _I'm staying in here for the rest of my life."_

"Your aunt's worried. She's let her supper freeze waiting for you to come out and stop being foolish."

"Well, she'll be waiting a long time, then."

"I'm not going to let you hold a grudge against her because of this nonsense. She raised you like a mother would— she deserves your respect. And Zuko's been hoping to show you his new kata all day."

"She's _not_ my mother. If I want to kiss twenty girls a day, I will."

"From what I've heard, you haven't had much luck getting one girl—"

"I hate you."

"If you'd like, I'll bring the rest of the family over to the door so you can feud with them, too."

"Okay, I can't even get one stupid girl to want to kiss me! Happy? Not only did I break my betrothal contract and make Auntie blow her stack, I also don't even have a nice memory to make up for it!"

"What's her name?"

"... Rika. Himura Rika."

"Her house should be thrilled that a prince is interested in her; her father's lost their entire fortune on craps. You could do— you're _doing_ better."

"So? She's the prettiest girl in the Caldera, and I'm in love with her. Except... she doesn't like me like that."

"You're fifteen. You'll fall for all the pretty girls in the Caldera, trust me. And what's wrong with your betrothed?"

"There's nothing _wrong_ with Emi. I just don't love her. I don't even know anything about her. She says stuff her mother thinks I want to hear, and that's it."

"Even if you don't love her, you still have to marry her and be faithful, Lu Ten. There are responsibilities that come with your position— sometimes we must sacrifice for the good of our clan."

"Auntie already said that— at a way louder volume."

"But... I think once you really learn more about Emi, perhaps even after you're married, you may grow to love her for who she is. Your mother and I had hardly met before our wedding, yet I can't imagine that a more perfect woman could have been my wife."

"... You really loved Mom, huh? I mean, I guessed so, but I can't remember."

"I did. You'll have to take my word for it, but I did. These things just take time."

"... Okay. Rika said she _definitely_ isn't interested, and Emi might be all right."

"Now will you come out and have your supper? You can apologize to your aunt and look at Zuko's new kata and drink some nice ginseng— and I'd like to hear how my son thought the palace meat lockers were a prime place for seduction."

(There is a sound remarkably similar to a hand colliding with a forehead.)


	10. want to be your light

Zuko had drafted extensive plans for how he was going to propose to his girlfriend of four years, because she's amazing and brilliant and gorgeous and deserves perfection. Really. So when he arranged a Very Special Breakfast to stage the event, her favorite foods and fire lilies in vases and no courtiers milling around, it was with the absolute best romantic intentions. _Really_.

His collar is itchier than usual, which is saying something. The rice on his plate lies lukewarm and forgotten. Has this room always been so humid? Why is she staring? Oh, who is he kidding, why would she ever accept?

"Are you okay?" Mai asks, waving an impatient hand in front of his face. "You've been _twitching_ all morning. It's starting to freak me out."

"Can you pass the lychee juice?" he sputters— Mai, looking at him like she would at a particularly slow child, pushes it across the table. "And, um, do you want to marry me?"

His face grows very hot as his vision blurs, because that was so not part of the plan and Mai is still giving him that same look. "Sure," she finally says with a shrug, and picks up her chopsticks again to spear a dumpling. "You'd better buy me a good bracelet, though. I _hate_ orange. And pink. And bright— you know what, just go with black."

Well, then. He doesn't know what offends him more— her complete lack of enthusiasm, or how she assumed he could ever forget her color preferences. "That was anticlimactic," he grumbles. "If I give you a diamond mine, will you at least smile for the wedding portrait?"

She rolls her eyes. "You should have tried harder with the proposal, lover boy. I've heard that some guys utilize chocolate and jewellery."

"Come on. Even _you_ have to be excited about getting married. You'll become the Fire Lady?"

"I already get enough tension headaches from dealing with the idiots in your council. Adding that huge hairpiece to the mix is a recipe for disaster."

"We'll have a big party? With all of our friends, and the _okonomiyaki_ you like, and dancing—"

"And plenty of alcohol, I hope."

It's good that he's got one last ace up his sleeve. "Your mother's going to have to stop sending us letters about how we're living in sin?"

"No more warning notes on how I'll never find a husband since your pistil penetrated my lotus blossom?" And then she does smile, and he swears her entire face lights up— she's so achingly, hauntingly beautiful to him, but happiness makes her almost impossible to look at straight. "You've got a deal."

"We don't have to do it if you're not ready," he says, suddenly propelled into seriousness. "I just— I love you, Mai. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I can't imagine _not_ being with you."

She reaches over the table and presses her hand into his. "That's why a wedding isn't important," she says, her voice growing far softer. "We've been living together for years. Getting married is just telling the rest of the nobles things we told each other a long time ago."

"So—?"

"Yes."

He knocks over the juice pitcher trying to kiss her, but it doesn't matter.


	11. spider plays the fool

The peasant boy was stupid, playing out in the street like that. He runs right behind an ostrich-horse cart, the beast starts, and before you can blink there's a crowd and people gasping and crushed _something_ and your mama presses your head into her skirts.

Don't look, darling, she says, and leads you away from the carnage to a spice stall. You do anyway, peeping through the sheer fabric. A woman you think (was) the boy's mother is screaming so loud her voice cracks, on her knees in the dirt. You don't understand her face. You have never seen such a face, twisted up and shrunken in—

Mama finishes her shopping early, and you practice the faces before your bedroom mirror once you're ensconsed in the palace again. Grimace, widen your eyes, gape your mouth open in—

you don't understand. It doesn't look right, but you don't know why.

When you think about the red red stains on the ground, though, the blood and bone and brain splattered all over, a low hum jolts through your body. You want to see it again.

(You will.)


	12. sold my soul to a three-piece

She and her six sisters have always just been _the girls_ , as long as she can remember. A matched set, Mother and Daddy say, marching in lockstep— identical looks, identical temperaments. Meant for identical futures, padding the family coffers with wealthy husbands' money. Their parents don't see any difference between the seven of them. That's irrelevant, counterproductive.

Ty Lee notices, however; Ty Lee notices more than most people realize she does. Aoi is a _firebender_ who hates being trotted out to perform at dinner parties. Biyu thinks that blue is the prettiest color, even if it's what Water Tribe savages wear. Yingtai has a not-so-secret crush on Prince Zuko and keeps a portrait of him in her bedroom. Lan once bribed her to distract the head cook while she kissed a serving girl in the pantry. Jia has a hidden copy of Love Amongst the Dragons, though it's been banned for years. Meizhen cries at night when she thinks nobody can hear because her fiancé is twenty years older than her, with two other wives already.

And Ty Lee herself—

She's terrible at lessons, can barely scrape passing marks in Fire Nation history and calligraphy and mathematics, but she's top of her class in gymnastics; her body seems to obey her commands perfectly, effortlessly, when it comes to this. Half of the academy has sprained wrists and bloody knees from mimicking her, and for the first time in her life, little Ty Lee seventh- daughter-who-really-should've-been-a-son is the center of attention.

(She likes it. She likes it a _lot_.)

Princess Azula approaches her one day— all tilted chin and gleaming eyes, all self-importance worn in place of a crown. You're different, she says. Show me how to do that. Call me _Azula_.

(Her own mother can't remember her name half the time, but Azula, the most important girl in the world, thinks that there's something special about her.

Maybe that's why she loves the princess so much, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.)


	13. torn asunder

reflections on a family destroyed:

Ozai— _didí_ hanging off your robes and teasing Lu Ten and begging for more candied violets after dinner, sneers down at you from atop his dais. Magnanimously, he allows his shattered wreck of a brother to haunt the palace, but his eyes spit something else altogether; look, look at what I can do, now that I've won the game of thrones. You don't know when his pride curdled like bad milk, and you so wish you could rouse yourself to give a damn, while the Earth Kingdom goes up in flames the same way your father's old will did.

Zuko— he slowly but surely begins to shadow you, so quiet and so pale that you fear he may soon fade into the tapestries. He lives in the spaces Ursa left behind and cringes as his father and sister spread themselves out, as Ozai dismisses him for a useless weakling and Azula taunts him from above. You grow to love this sullen, shellshocked child with a frightening intensity, feed him stories about the warfront and cups upon cups of chamomile tea, but sometimes _Lu Ten_ comes too close to falling from your mouth.

Azula— the clever, fierce girl with a barbed tongue you sent dolls to is now a contemptuous half-woman, her flames a shield she never dares to lift. She burns her friends when they lose at hide and explode the same way she burns her opponents in Agni Kai. Luxuriating in her status as the apple of Ozai's eye, she volleys glancing blows at your abandonment of Ba Sing Se, torments the servants and her schoolmates with impunity. She plays the part of warrior princess to perfection— so well that you never ask her whether she misses her mother. Not even once.

(Ozai snarls in his chains, Zuko cannot meet your gaze as they lead you to prison, Azula tries to slit her wrists three times successively unsuccessfully howling for death. You are so sorry, so often.)


	14. lure the fly

She bows at your feet in submission, as she must, but you quickly pull her up and place a hand on top of her head. Daughter, you say, always have you exceeded my expectations. I sent you after your failure brother and traitor uncle, and you have brought me back a kingdom.

Azula smiles, satisfied. Murmurs, Zuko has returned to his crown.

And why is that?

Because— a dramatic pause— he accomplished what even I could not. When the traitor tested his loyalty to the Fire Nation, Zuko slayed the avatar and laid the corpse at my feet. Such ferocity deserves a reward.

You laugh and laugh and laugh, and after a second Azula laughs, too. Reward, indeed. And what prize would _you_ like, my sweet?

Her eyes remind you of a spider's. Black widow. I want nothing, she says artfully. To serve my country and my lord father is more than enough.

This one is your child and there is an ancient madness in her, cruelty that she just barely manages to contain— nothing drives her but a parasitic desire to advance herself. She lies lies lies, concealing her motives behind a mask of sororal affection, and you don't think you've ever been prouder.

Azula kisses your cheek— unexpected, unbidden— and bows again before flouncing out of the antechamber. Send for Zuko soon, she calls over her shoulder. He's very _anxious_.


End file.
